English River Names: Flow gently sweet Afton and Avon

Some months back, we ran a blog about the names of rivers in Western Europe, and we promised to follow it up with one on English and Irish waterways. Well here, at last, it is.

The landscapes of the British Isles and Ireland are traversed by rivers, some as long as the Thames and the river Shannon, some flowing across national borders, from England to Scotland or Wales, while others are much smaller streams.

Not surprisingly, most of these names are less lyrical than the French and Italian examples, more simple and straightforward. A sizable number of them already exist as people names—Amber, Tamar, Perry, Douglas –while the rest are possible crossovers. Of these, some sound decidedly masculine (Dart, Dewey), while others could conceivably be used for girls.